Field of the Invention
The present invention is for an electronic sign, and more particularly, for an electronic sign having slotted frame cabinets wherein each slotted frame cabinet conveniently attaches to one or more vertically or horizontally situated adjacent slotted frame cabinets. An individual slotted frame cabinet can also be utilized by itself for use as an electronic sign.
Description of the Prior Art
The invention is to be used as a replacement for current technology sign structures which are very labor intensive and which require welding, individual component fitting, drilling, and the like. Welding is very time consuming and is a hard process to control with respect to uniformity and trueness of surfaces. Welding also reduces the strength characteristics of aluminum structures used therein and thereabout. The new invention uses structural rivets for cabinet component attachment, thus eliminating the need for welding. Joining of components such as, but not limited to, formed channels to the slotted frames of the slotted frame cabinet is accomplished by the use of prepunched and preformed components and rivets. The use of structural prepunched and preformed components with rivets allows for the automation of the entire process of fabrication. The prepunched holes used for the accommodation of rivets self-align the component parts, thus substantially reducing manufacturing labor.
The new invention eliminates the need for nutserts and other traditional fastening schemes used for splicing and joining adjacent slotted frame cabinets and eliminates the need for attaching clip angle supports to the rear of an electronic sign cabinet. It does this by having substantially continuous slotted frame cabinets which can accept external splicing and connection structures such as mounting clamps, splice plates, backing bars, and the like, which can conveniently splice, align and secure adjacent slotted frame cabinets together in vertical or horizontal relationships.
Prior art devices relied on installing nutserts for splicing and attaching clip angles to the rear of a cabinet for mounting and/or installation purposes, each of which requires extra assembly steps and, when installed, do not have variable placement. The use of continuous horizontally aligned backing bar slots eliminates the requirement for the use of horizontal stringers on the rear of a sign structure which were used for mounting to various support structures.
Many prior art devices fait to accommodate unequally spaced vertically aligned ground mounted support structure. The invention provides a solution for such variable positioning of ground mounted support structure by providing slot mounted positionable mounting clamps aligned at variable spacings in slots along the entire horizontal length of one or more joined slotted frame cabinets to accommodate variably spaced ground based support structures such as, but not limited to, vertically aligned I-beam supports.
Prior art designs have been such that lift eyes penetrate the cabinet interior and are placed at predetermined points in the cabinet frame. The disadvantage of such a system is that it is labor intensive to attach the lift eyes. Furthermore, such through the cabinet structure mounting allows entry points for the elements. This present invention allows for flexibility in the lift eye location by allowing the lift eye to translate anywhere along a lift eye slot in the length of one or more of the cabinet sections. The lift structure does not communicate with the interior of the cabinet sections.
This invention also provides for a watertight assembly because the cabinet interior is not penetrated by the use of fasteners, such as used in prior art devices. The slotted frame cabinet interior is not penetrated during factory or on-site installation since cabinet sections are spliced externally by components which align to or within externally located slots located along and about the cabinet frame.
Prior art devices in the field required the removal of electronic display modules in order to splice cabinet sections, as splicing of one cabinet section to another required internal access to mounting hardware, connector plates, and the like. The present invention allows external connective splicing of vertically or horizontally adjacent cabinet sections without accessing the interior of a slotted frame cabinet.